PHOENIX – A center fielder from Triple-A Oklahoma City will be joining the Dodgers in San Diego when rosters expand this weekend.

And it won’t be Joc Pederson.

Alex Verdugo, the Dodgers’ top-rated position player prospect and the 28th-rated prospect in the minors overall, will be one of the team’s first September call-ups. Pederson, who has played as much left field as center field since being demoted to Triple-A, will not. Pederson is likely to join the Dodgers after the Triple-A season ends next week when another wave of call-ups is expected.

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One of the youngest position players in Triple-A this year, Verdugo, 21, was also one of the Pacific Coast League’s better hitters, batting .314 with a .389 on-base percentage.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts confirmed Verdugo will join the team in San Diego but wouldn’t be specific about his plans regarding playing time for the young outfielder.

“We’re going to play him,” Roberts said. “I do want to see Alex take at-bats and get out there.”

The Dodgers do not have the same curiosity level with Pederson, who has hit .167 (6 for 36) with one extra-base hit (a double) in nine games for OKC since being demoted. Six of those games have been in left field, not center field. All 322 of Pederson’s big-league starts with the Dodgers came in center field. Like his offense, though, Pederson’s defense in center field (particularly his range) has regressed this season. Chris Taylor never played center field before this spring but he and Kike’ Hernandez both rate higher defensively in center field than Pederson.

“We want all of these guys to be able to play multiple positions,” Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi of the move for Pederson. “I can imagine certain configurations where it makes sense to have him playing there, others where he’s playing center. We just want him to be at least comfortable playing both when he comes back.

“We still see him as a center fielder. … I think generally when guys get optioned, they can sort of work on different positions without the spotlight of being here.”

Zaidi indicated Pederson will indeed return to the Dodgers in September but a spot on the postseason roster seems far from certain. Though Granderson had just five hits in his first 40 at-bats with the Dodgers, four of those hits were home runs and he also has nine walks. Pederson, meanwhile, has made some progress in the swing adjustments he started to make before being sent down.

“To kind of build on that momentum is best for Joc,” Roberts said.

The acquisition of Granderson allowed the Dodgers to send Pederson to Triple-A to work on those adjustments away from the big-league spotlight, Zaidi said, and the Dodgers still believe in Pederson’s ability to evolve as a hitter.

“We appreciate that because of the kind of hitter he is there are always going to be streaks. You don’t want to change the longer-term plan as he goes through some of those,” Zaidi said.

“I hope and believe that some of these adjustments – I mean, he hit for average as he was coming up through the minor leagues. I think there is more to the bat than we see right now. He can become a more complete player. He sees himself that way. That’s something he’s said to us over the course of the past couple months. ‘I’m not a .230 hitter.’ I think some of the adjustments he’s working on are geared towards not being the ‘all-or-nothing’ type hitter.”

SEAGER PROGRESS

Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager went through a pregame workout, running and fielding ground balls but not making any throws. Seager will continue with those workouts through the weekend and won’t start a throwing program until Monday, Roberts said. It will probably be at least a few days after that before Seager returns to the starting lineup.

Seager has been out of the lineup the past three games with a sore right elbow and has appeared only as a pinch-hitter.

“We just wanted to get him out there, moving around,” Roberts said. “He’ll probably do the same the next few days through San Diego.

“Getting that (elbow discomfort) to dissipate is the goal.”

ALSO

Roberts said Clayton Kershaw will be on a loose pitch limit of five innings or 75 pitches Friday. Kershaw has been on the DL since July 23 with a lower back strain. He threw 64 pitches in five innings in a rehab start with Triple-A Oklahoma City last week. “Stressful innings, how the efficiency goes – we can adjust,” Roberts said.

According to the Twitter account of the agents who represent him, Wilmer Font will be among the Dodgers’ September call-ups this weekend. Font, 27, was named the PCL Pitcher of the Year Thursday. He leads the PCL with a 3.42 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and .222 opponents’ batting average and leads all of Triple-A with 178 strikeouts. Font made five appearances with the Texas Rangers in 2012 and 2013. Since then, he has bounced through three organizations and an independent league.

Bill Plunkett has covered everything from rodeo to Super Bowls to boxing (yeah, I was there the night Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off) during a career that started far too long ago to mention and eventually brought him to the OC some time last century (1999 actually). He has been covering Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register since 2003, spending time on both the Angels and Dodgers beats.

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